


Payment

by frausorge



Category: Perilous Gard - Elizabeth Marie Pope
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 23:49:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16208231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frausorge/pseuds/frausorge
Summary: When Christopher announced that he planned to marry Kate, she could not muster up more than a numb confusion.





	Payment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ConvenientAlias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/gifts).



> For ConvenientAlias - thanks for a great prompt! And many thanks to littlerhymes for very helpful beta.

Kate's eyes were blinded with tears, but even had they been dry and clear, she thought, she would not have seen the Lady leave her. She would have needed Gwenhyfara to teach her how to look first, perhaps. There was so much she had yet to learn. And now—now.

She stood on the terrace and wept while the air grew colder around her.

Christopher's voice fell on her like a slap. He would not listen when she asked him to let her alone; he bullied her back into the evidence room where she had been imprisoned once before, fearing for her life. She was not afraid now, or at least she did not feel it. She felt rather distant and slow. Even when Christopher announced that he planned to marry her, she could not muster up more than a numb confusion. 

"But why?" she said.

"I need you," Christopher told her. And: "you've always seemed to me like a part of myself." 

Those things were true enough, but Kate had some experience now in sifting through truths. She thought about what Christopher had said, everything he had asserted so confidently, and then she thought about what he had still not asked, and what he had still not said. She could not deny that she was tempted. It would be so easy to give in, to let his plans unfold and pretend that this was what she had wanted. It was closer to her hopes than the picture of the future that the Lady had offered with her payment. It was very close indeed.

 _But I would know_ , Kate thought. _I would know._

"I can't marry you," she said.

"What!" said Christopher.

Kate lifted her head and looked at him straight on. "I am not a part of you," she said. "I am someone myself, and it is not for you to say how my voice should sound, or what room I must sit in, or whom I will marry. And I'm telling you it won't be you."

"How can you say that? You love me—I know you do! You came to talk to me all those nights. You spoke for me in the circle, which may I say was extremely foolish and dangerous, but you did it, for me!"

"Yes," Kate said. "But that doesn't mean I have to marry you now."

"But everything is ready!" Christopher said. "Your dowry, and the ring, and the manor we spent all that time planning. Your father has given his consent. What more do you want?"

"Nothing," said Kate.

 

She slept heavily that night, weary to her core and feeling as if she did not have strength left even to roll over. The only thing that roused her briefly was Alicia slipping under the blankets on the other side of the bed. 

"Kate?" Alicia whispered. All Kate could manage was a wordless noise in her throat before her eyes fell shut again.

 

Dorothy had hung the brocade dress up carefully in the garderobe. Kate spared a glance at it before pulling out her gray riding dress. It still had too many petticoats, but at least it was less gaudy.

Christopher was not at the breakfast table. But Kate felt her father's eyes on her and knew Christopher must have spoken to him. 

"Kate," Sir Thomas said as the last of the plates were being carried away. "Come with me, please." And then, when they were settled in a little sitting room, he went on: "What's this I hear? You mean to refuse young Heron?" 

"Yes," Kate said. "I did."

"You need not have any doubts about him. When he came to ask for my consent, it was obvious he was entirely set upon you."

"I don't doubt that," Kate said. "I just—I cannot believe we would be happy together."

Sir Thomas paused, studying her face. "I don't understand you," he said. "By all accounts Heron is the best match I've heard of for you. But I won't force you. The Queen sent me to bring you back to her, after all; you still have a place in her household, though I can't imagine you'll find the courtiers much more to your liking. But in that case we should return to London as soon as possible, and not trespass on Sir Geoffrey's hospitality any further."

Kate bowed her head and nodded.

 

After leaving her father, she made her way back down through the gallery and knocked at the door of the evidence room. 

"Mistress Katherine," Sir Geoffrey said, and she knew from the coolness of his voice that Christopher had spoken to him in the meantime too.

"I have a boon to ask of you," she said quickly. His eyebrows went up.

" _You_ would ask a boon of me?"

"If we have been friends," she said, "if I have done you any service—"

His jaw shifted at that. "Well?"

"Don't fell the dancing oak," she said. And then, remembering herself, "Please."

"And why not?"

"There is some joy left in it," Kate said, "and no harm. You've won; you have your daughter back, and—and your brother, and you've broken their circle and driven them out of the hill. They have little left to them but their lives. You don't need to crush this last bit of joy under your heel."

"I don't want them hanging about here." 

"They won't," Kate promised. "They won't want to linger at the hill now that it's been desecrated. If they come to dance, it will only be for a few nights out of the year, and they won't go farther than the wood. They'll never come up to the house any more."

"Nor the village," Sir Geoffrey said.

That was promising. "Nor the village," Kate agreed. Then she waited. Sir Geoffrey's mouth tightened; he drew in a breath and let it out again.

"Very well. The oak shall remain."

"Thank you," Kate said, stepping forward.

"Don't thank me," he said. "I'll cry quit with you now, and we'll have done."

It was Kate's turn to press her lips together then. She nodded in acknowledgment and turned to go. 

"You never were good at doing what you were told," he said as she opened the door.

"No," she said, glancing back. "I never was."

 

Kate went back up to the room that had been hers, meaning to start packing her things; not that it would take much time, for she owned little enough, but rather because she couldn't think of anything else to do. But just as she opened the garderobe, she heard Alicia's voice rising through the stairwell, calling her name. Then Kate snatched up her cloak and hood and gloves, and fled. She brushed past Alicia on the stairs and kept going, almost running, out through the hall and onto the road, and she barely even slowed until she was well into the Elvenwood.

 

"Fairy woman, what are you doing here?" a voice said behind her.

Kate jumped. "Randal!" she said. "I'm not a fairy woman. I'm Kate Sutton. Don't you know me?"

"I knew you before, and I know you now," Randal said. "Are you looking for the others?"

Kate caught her breath. "Have you seen them? Are they still here?"

"Anyone can see the Queen when her cloak is as red as a robin redbreast."

"Will you show me where?"

Randal smiled. "This way," he said. 

He led Kate off through the trees, by a way that had nothing to mark it except that it was mostly free of undergrowth. Kate did not know quite how long they walked, but it was still light when they reached a little clearing between the roots of three or four massive old trees. Randal led Kate around a trunk to enter the open space, and Gwenhyfara lifted her head from the bundles she was bent over and looked straight at Kate. "You!" she said.

Then Kate saw the Lady, in the red cloak and holding a brown cloth pack, but standing tall and straight. 

"I had not thought to see you again," the Lady said.

"I wanted—" Kate said. "I mean, I came to tell you that I spoke to Sir Geoffrey this morning. He has agreed to spare the oak, as long as you and your people do not go near the house or the village."

Kate thought she saw a line or two around the Lady's mouth ease, but the Lady was still regarding her gravely.

"That is welcome news. But you did not need to come yourself to tell it."

Kate fought the urge to shift her feet. "I needed to get outside for a while," she confessed. "I—" There was no point in hiding it. "Christopher—the Young Lord—told me that he planned to marry me. I suppose that is no surprise to you." Kate wondered if that would get a response, but the Lady's expression did not change. "At any rate," Kate went on, "I told him that I would not. And now everyone is displeased with me. So I had to get away from the house."

The Lady paused again. Gwenhyfara was standing still, watching her. Randal had turned aside to pick through some branches on the ground.

"Yesterday you refused the payment I offered," the Lady said. "But you have done the service I asked of you, and I would still make you some return. So today I will offer you this: if you do not wish to remain in that house, you may come with us."

Kate's jaw dropped. "Go with you?" she repeated. "Where? And to do what?"

"We have no set destination," the Lady said. "Especially now, as you well know. We will visit the places we have tended, gather what we can to sell, and seek shelter as we may in between. I will tell you plainly, it is a hard and weary road. If you wish for comfort or ease, you should remain where you are. But if you seek a way out from under the lord's roof—that, I can give you."

Kate could still hardly comprehend what the Lady was proposing. She tried to school her mind to think. She would be leaving Elvenwood Hall in any case; she did not need the Lady's help for that. But her father's disappointment and Alicia's reproaches would go with her to London, and might be echoed or even magnified among those of Queen Elizabeth's household. And though she respected and admired Elizabeth herself, the royal court in general attracted chiefly people whom Kate found troubling or wearying or both.

Then she tried to imagine what the future could possibly hold if she left her family. She knew that the offer the Lady had made yesterday was meant to hurt her, and that this one was no more likely to be intended as a kindness. She was not wise enough to puzzle out all the ways the Lady might turn or twist it against her. All Kate could do was consider the offer at face value and judge it based on its own merits. 

She thought of standing in attendance as a lady-in-waiting at court, and then she thought of walking on open roads under the winter sun. She did not know what would happen, but she knew what she felt and what she wanted. 

"Very well," she said. "I accept."

The Lady smiled briefly.

"We must be off, then. We still have far to go today."

Kate nodded. Her heart was beating so fast she could not speak. 

Gwenhyfara, who had watched their whole exchange silently, handed her a pack and said, "Carry this." Kate nodded again and fumbled to fasten the straps. It was heavy, but the weight was well balanced once she had it properly settled on her back.

Randal sidled back up to her while the Lady and Gwenhyfara were conferring a few steps away. He held out one of the sticks he had picked up from the ground. "I found this for you," he said. It was sturdy, blunt at the end, and about the right length to be a good walking stick for someone of Kate's height.

"Thank you, Randal," Kate said, touched.

"I will give Sir Geoffrey the news of your doings," he said. "I will tell him you are gone to serve the Queen."

"No, no, it's my father you must tell this time. Tell him—" But Kate stuck there, and Randal was already beginning to look confused. Kate didn't think she could have explained her choice to her father even face to face, let alone in a message condensed into a form Randal could retain. "Tell him I am well," she said finally. "Tell him not to fear for me."

"We must go now," said the Lady.

"Yes, I'm ready," Kate said.

The Lady set out between the trees, leaving Randal behind in the clearing, and Gwenhyfara and Kate followed after her with the filtered sunlight slanting onto the right side of their faces. 

 

Kate didn't think they could get very far before the sun went down altogether, and indeed they didn't, but nor did they stop then. Dusk fell, and the moon rose, and the Lady kept walking, at a pace that neither rushed nor dallied. Kate thought perhaps the Lady and Gwenhyfara could have gone faster on their own; the work she had done under the hill had made her strong in some ways but not in this. Still, she refused to apologize for holding them back. 

There were moments when she thought she must be dreaming, that soon she would find herself lying in bed with either Dorothy or Gwenhyfara shaking her awake. And there were other moments when her shoulders and her thighs ached, and her feet slipped in the brush on the ground, and she saw the Lady reach up to tuck a sweat-damp strand of hair back under the red hood; and then Kate knew that this was all very real.

Finally they came to a place where a little overhang by the bank of a stream provided some shelter. They set their packs down, and at Gwenhyfara's direction Kate pulled out a wrapped bundle which turned out to be perfectly normal bread and cheese. She wondered if the Hillfolk had made or bought those. She could have eaten much more than she was given, but then, Gwenhyfara had only packed for two, so in that light Kate was lucky to get anything at all.

After they had eaten, the Lady and Gwenhyfara lay down wrapped in blankets, and Kate couldn't help blinking when she saw Gwenhyfara press up close to the Lady's side. The Lady glanced up and saw Kate looking at them.

"It will be cold tonight," she said. "I would advise you to lie close and share warmth with us. But if you object, you may choose not to, of course."

"No, I—I have no objection," Kate said. She was very well used to sharing a bed with her sister or the other girls of a household when necessary. But she was still in a state of astonishment at being in the Lady's company at all, and could not at first fathom the idea of being so familiar as to plaster herself against the Lady's back, the way Alicia had sometimes cuddled up to Kate.

So Kate lay down leaving a hands-breadth of space between them, and the Lady did not move either closer or farther away, or speak again. After a few minutes Kate found herself shivering, and she inched closer, and closer still. Finally, in the haze of exhaustion, she gave in and closed the distance till her whole body was touching the warmth of the Lady in front of her.

 

They set out again before dawn the next day. Kate had woken stiff and sore from sleeping on the ground, but when she opened her eyes to the branches and dim stars above her, her heart filled with a rush of excitement. And when the sun rose, thin but bright in the clear sky, she felt as if she would like to start singing.

Near noon they came to a village. Gwenhyfara told Kate to wait at the edge of the woods while she and the Lady went to the marketplace to sell their dried herbs. She cast an eye at Kate's dress, which, though old and rather bedraggled by this time, still did not look like one that a village woman or a traveler would wear. "We will have to find you something else," she said.

Kate was glad enough of the chance to rest, as they had walked long enough for the ache in her feet to take the morning's buoyancy out of her step. She did wonder for a while whether the others would actually come back to fetch her, or whether they might go on their way and leave her to shift for herself. The Lady had said only that Kate could go with them, after all; she had not said for how long. However, after little more than an hour they did return, carrying fresh bread and other supplies. Gwenhyfara repacked their bundles, and they pressed on.

 

"Now you can learn how to speak," Gwenhyfara said to Kate.

"Oh!" Kate said. "Yes."

She was following the others up a trail winding around the side of a hill. The footing was good, but the angle was steep.

"You may begin by singing."

"Can't it—wait," Kate said, "till we reach—the top—of this hill?"

"No," said Gwenhyfara. "You must learn to control your breathing; all else is built on that. Begin now."

It was not quite as bad as the exercises Gwenhyfara had made Kate do under the hill, but it was hard enough, and made trickier because Kate could hardly think of any songs that she might sing. She was sure the Lady did not want to hear a Christian hymn, "Binnoorie" made Kate miss Alicia too sharply, and "Tam Lin" was entirely out of the question. Finally she settled on "The Twa Corbies", which, however disheartening, should at least not be offensive.

The odd thing was that the singing actually helped. As Kate began to marshal the air she took in and expended, she found herself needing to gasp less and less, and her strides became longer and steadier as well.

Over the following days, Gwenhyfara trained Kate to modulate her tone and keep her voice from rising into squeaks of surprise or indignation.

The Lady rarely spoke while Gwenhyfara was giving Kate instructions, but Kate had the impression she was listening closely all the same.

 

After several more days—Kate realized too late that she had failed to keep count—they stopped walking earlier than usual, before full dark. Gwenhyfara sent Kate to gather firewood and said, "Bring twice as much tonight, for some others will be arriving soon. We will keep the solstice together."

Kate was surprised, for since the beginning of their journey she had not heard the Lady or Gwenhyfara say anything of the other people who had lived with them under the hill. When the three newcomers arrived, Kate thought she recognized the youngest of them as the girl who had been the next of the servers after Gwenhyfara. She could not have said whether the two older women had been among the thirteen or not. They spoke a few words aside to the Lady, and then came to warm themselves at the fire. They did not say anything to Kate, though they looked at her as steadily and gravely as they looked at everything around them.

They waited till after dark and then arranged themselves at equal distances around the fire. Kate sat a little way back and listened as the Lady spoke and the others responded in unison, calling the light and the darkness. She caught her breath when the Lady stooped and lit the end of a long stick from the fire, but the Lady let it burn only long enough to pass the light from one woman to the next around the circle, and then doused it again in a patch of mud. Still Kate kept seeing in her mind's eye the way the flames had played over the Lady's beautiful, implacable face.

 

In the morning, when the embers had been scattered and everyone was making ready to leave, Gwenhyfara came to Kate and said, "You have progressed well in your speech. If you continue to practice as I have shown you, you will soon be ready to recite lore."

"Will you not continue to teach me?" Kate asked.

"No. I am going east now, while you accompany the Lady to the south."

Kate tried to swallow back her surprise. "I did not know you meant to leave us," she said. "What must I do when you are gone?"

"The Lady will instruct you," said Gwenhyfara.

The four who were leaving sank down into the Queen's bow. The beautiful lines of it were only a little marred by their frayed cloaks and patched skirts. Then they parted, Gwenhyfara with the oldest woman and the other two together.

When they were gone, Kate cleared away the rest of the camp as she had seen Gwenhyfara do previously. The Lady stood by, watching. Kate did not dare ask any of the questions pressing at her tongue. After she had finished, they both strapped their packs onto their backs, and Kate followed the Lady out of the hollow.

"What are the uses of willow bark?" the Lady said when they had been walking for some time. 

Kate was extremely glad that she had learned enough in the speech lessons to help her keep quiet instead of stammering while she tried to form an answer. Hadn't Dorothy given her willow bark tea to drink when her wounded hand was at its worst? "It helps against pain," she said. "And it can bring down a fever."

"How does one take it?"

"Boil it for tea," Kate said, more confidently.

"That is not the only way, but yes, that is possible. When must you harvest it?"

"In autumn, I suppose."

"No. I see we shall have to start at the very beginning." Kate felt herself flush. "Repeat after me," the Lady said, and Kate bit her lip and set herself to listen.

 

That night, when they lay down to sleep, the Lady turned to lie facing Kate. Her breathing evened before long, but Kate could not quiet her own mind so quickly. The lessons the Lady had made her recite were still running through her head, and through and around those thoughts twined all the questions Kate could neither ask nor repress, of what was to come and how they were to live. And over all of that was the feeling of the Lady's body resting against her own, muffled in cloth, but warm and so soft where they pressed together. 

Kate had closed her eyes, yet she knew so well now the lines of the Lady's face that she could picture them before her without looking: her delicate brows and cheekbones, the curve of her nose, the assessing set of her mouth. Despite the cold night air, Kate began to feel confined within the blankets, almost overheated. She grew restless and had to force herself to lie still.

 

The Lady went into the next village by herself and came back not only with food but with a bundle of cloth under her arm. When she shook it out Kate saw that it was a villager's dress, rough brown wool with a full skirt somewhat shorter than what she was used to wearing.

"Put this on," the Lady said, "and from now on you may come to market days with me and help sell our wares."

 

Kate was lying awake again and trying to force herself to lie still. She did not think she had squirmed, but the Lady's eyes blinked open and Kate quailed under her scrutiny. The Lady's gaze dipped down for a moment and then back up.

"Do you wish to take pleasure together?" she said softly.

"What do you mean?"

The Lady lifted her hand and rubbed her thumb once over Kate's lower lip. Kate gasped.

"Your priests forbid it," the Lady said, "but among our people women may give each other the joys of the body, if they so choose."

Kate still did not understand what the Lady intended, but she felt her body yearning toward the heat of the Lady next to her. She gulped in another breath and nodded.

The Lady smiled. She set her hand under Kate's breast, bent forward, and kissed her.

Kate had never been kissed in such a way before, her mouth being plundered with the same deliberation and intensity that the Lady brought to all her actions. The hand at Kate's breast found its way into her bodice, onto her skin, and Kate could no longer control her breathing. Presently the Lady withdrew her hand, and Kate was ready to protest its loss until she felt her skirts being pushed up and the Lady beginning to work her fingers between Kate's legs. Then Kate could not control anything anymore. She moaned and thrashed and grunted, louder and louder, till her pleasure peaked and she subsided into a limp heap. 

When her breathing had steadied, and she was beginning to feel the cold again, she opened her eyes a little fearfully. But the Lady did not look displeased.

"Tell me—" Kate croaked, "tell me what I must do."

"Just this, for now." The Lady pulled her own bodice open, revealing the shallow curve of her breasts, and drew Kate's head forward with a hand on the nape of her neck. Kate put her mouth on one breast and her fingers on the other, and did not let go until she felt the movement of the Lady's arm between their bodies cease. 

 

In the morning Kate had some trouble meeting the Lady's eye. The Lady, however, moved with her usual calm and grace as they made ready. 

"We must make haste today," she told Kate. "The weather is near to changing."

"I suppose we have been lucky that the mild weather has lasted so long," Kate said.

The Lady turned and looked at her. "What is comfortable for you is not always good for the land. The pests will be bad next year because they did not freeze in the ground now."

Kate had not thought of that. "But," she ventured, "if there is a cold snap coming, might that not help?"

The Lady shook her head. "The summer was too cold, and the winter is too warm, and we did not pay the teind and will never pay it again. So the gods will take the price from us another way."

Her voice was very plain and matter-of-fact, but Kate felt the reproach and remained silent.

That day the Lady did not make her recite as they walked, perhaps due to their faster pace, so Kate had plenty of time to think as they went. She could not regret having prevented Christopher's death. Even after she had seen how he truly thought of her, and the chill that had now spread over her former feeling for him, she did not wish him ill. And though he had agreed to the bargain with the Guardian of the Well, it was certainly not a free choice. Kate wondered if the kings of the past had sincerely believed that their deaths would help their land. She could not imagine wanting to worship gods that would require it. Yet she also found herself wondering, a little, what the land had looked like when the Lady's forebears had had the management of it—how it might have flourished under their rule. She did not quite know what the spread of Christendom had done.

Then Kate's mind skipped sideways and she remembered again the Lady's voice saying, _your priests forbid it_. She felt her face flush hot, even beyond the effects of their rapid walking, and she forced herself to pay attention to the way and to the woods around them to draw her mind back to the present.

 

They slept rough one more night. The Lady lay down with Kate and went to sleep immediately, saying nothing more. Kate felt tense trying to lie still, to press no closer than the Lady had put them, and to keep her breathing steady, but she was tired and it did not take as long as she feared for her to drop off as well.

At the end of the second day's hard walking, they came to a little stone hut under a willow tree. It was overgrown with branches and vines, with barely any clearing around it, so that it had an air of abandonment and disuse. But the roof and the walls were solid enough.

The Lady sent Kate to fill their water skin at the stream that could be heard not far away. When Kate returned, she found the Lady had built a fire in the pit at the center of the earthen floor and was sitting in front of it with her eyes closed. Kate sat down opposite her and thought that a few harsh lines around her mouth had eased.

"We will remain here until the willows are ready to be harvested," the Lady said. Kate found the idea pleased her too.

 

They ranged about the vicinity of the hut when the weather allowed, visiting places where beds of the hardiest winter herbs were tucked away under the trees, or where others could be planted come spring. And once a week they walked the two hours into the closest village for market day.

Kate always felt a bit awkward in the marketplace. She could not speak in the same singsong the Lady adopted in public, so if she had to say anything she would revert to her childhood accent, even though that was already beginning to feel strange to her after so many hours practicing the tones Gwenhyfara had taught her. And Kate knew that as strangers she and the Lady were always the targets of curiosity and suspicion. The townspeople were clearly used to having travelers and herb sellers visit, but it wasn't the usual time of year, and Kate heard more than a few whispers in more or less hushed tones behind her back. It was a relief to retreat back into the quiet of the woods.

Sometimes hearing the villagers call out to each other would make Kate miss her father and Alicia. She wished she could see them, but the wish was tempered by knowing they would neither understand nor countenance her life with the Lady. They would be angry, her father silently and Alicia more vocally, and that anger would color every exchange she might have with them. There could be no return to the companionship they had once had at her father's house, before Kate and Alicia had gone to Hatfield. So Kate's longing dulled and settled, till she forgot to think of it in between market days.

She hardly had time to think of anything but what the Lady was teaching her, in any case. There was so much to know, not only about the herbs but about the trees and the other plants and the creatures that lived among them. The woods they walked through began to feel familiar to Kate, with landmarks she knew and varieties she could recognize, yet with more and more still to discover, the more she learned. After days spent almost entirely out of doors, she closed her eyes and fell asleep with no pause for melancholy.

 

"Of course, the forests extended farther to the south then," the Lady said. "We could walk in the shade from one grove to another all the way down to the banks of the river." 

Kate blinked, and the Lady raised an eyebrow at her. "Well?"

"It is just, I did not know there had been so much logging there lately," Kate said. "How could the forests have receded so quickly?"

"I am not speaking of my own lifetime's memory," the Lady said. "I am telling you what we remember from the time when the land was whole. Before any Christian priests came, or any Roman ones either."

"Oh," Kate said. 

The Lady walked on in silence for some time. When she spoke again, it was only to point out some hoof prints for Kate to identify.

 

If the weather was poor, they remained in the hut while the Lady made Kate practice her elocution and recite the lore. It was very dim there, with only a little light coming through the gap in the roof for the smoke. But to those who had been used to living under the hill, that was no matter.

 

"Do you wish—" the Lady said one night.

"Yes," Kate blurted out, in a way she almost never did in normal conversation any longer. She felt her cheeks go hot, but she didn't try to take it back.

The Lady's eyebrows rose infinitesimally, but she did not chide Kate for speaking loudly or out of turn. "Come here, then," she said.

When Kate approached, the Lady nudged Kate's chin up gently with her fingertips and then bent forward and kissed her. Kate lost herself in the kiss, its overwhelming immediacy of feeling. She blinked a few times when the Lady let her go.

"There is another skill you may learn, if you will," the Lady said. Kate nodded. So the Lady lay back and lifted her skirts, and at her prompting Kate settled between her legs and pressed first her lips and then her tongue to the slick folds between the Lady's thighs.

Kate felt very awkward at first, and after a few brief sentences the Lady went quiet, even her breathing remaining controlled. But gradually Kate found a rhythm for her own movements, licking steadily. And when she began to feel the shudders and tremors through the Lady's body, her head buzzed with satisfaction and pride. 

 

The lenience the Lady showed when their bodies were tangled together at night did not extend to any other part of their days. She corrected Kate's posture and speech quietly but relentlessly. She demanded that Kate recite the herb lore she had taught her daily, and added on new sections almost every other day. When Kate developed a bad cough, the Lady opened a pack, laid a bag of herbs in front of her, and told her to prepare her own remedy. 

Kate's head felt so thick that she could barely think, but she forced herself to go through all the lore in her head from the beginning, until she reached the part about coughs. Then she had to focus her swimming eyes to pick out thyme and ivy leaves from the bundles in the bag and brew them together over the banked fire. When the soreness in her throat and lungs finally eased and she could draw breath clearly again, she felt not only relief but a certain satisfaction in having applied her knowledge. The Lady said nothing, but she watched Kate's motions with fierce concentration, and after Kate had finished, the Lady's approving look made a rush of warmth run through her.

 

The little snow there had been melted away, leaving mud and half-rotted leaves in its wake. The air turned mild again, and humid. The Lady led Kate to the various stands of willow and made her learn all the paths between them and study their trunks and branches for signs of the sap moving.

Kate began to wonder again what was to come after they had harvested the willow bark. From what the Lady had said, it seemed safe to conclude that they would resume their journey. Kate supposed she would find out where when the Lady told her, and since she would most likely do the same sorts of tasks wherever they went, it did not matter so very much which particular villages they might stop in. The question that weighed on her mind more heavily was how long the Lady would keep Kate with her. She could not imagine that the Lady would devote herself so exclusively to Kate's education much longer, and yet Kate could feel her hands and shoulders go tense every time she pictured being sent away. She knew the expanse of the land would feel empty and the effort of all her labors hollow if she could not have the Lady as her guide. 

Sometimes, too, Kate thought of the Lady turning to someone else for pleasure at night, as coolly as she did now with Kate, and as she must have done with others before. Then Kate's lungs felt thick and sore, and she rolled over and curled up tightly to try to drive all such thoughts from her head.

Once, Kate almost made up her mind to ask the Lady if she might continue to travel with her, even if others joined them. But it occurred to her that the Lady might see such a request as a sign that Kate was too dependent, and feel it necessary to send her away on purpose to teach her detachment. So in the end Kate said nothing.

 

The two of them trudged back to the village, which they had not visited while Kate was ill. There was beginning to be more activity there as well, with a few peddlers and other travelers willing to brave the roads already. That meant more scrutiny while she and the Lady stood in the marketplace hawking their herbs. Kate called Gwenhyfara's silken thread to mind and kept her head held high, looking straight ahead, pretending she did not hear the whispers. 

"You are too stiff," the Lady said as they left the village. "You will injure your back if you continue walking like that." Her hand traced Kate's spine, feather-light.

Kate pressed her lips together and nodded.

"You should practice falling again tonight."

Kate nodded again.

Back at the hut, after they had put away their purchases, she stepped back out into the clearing which was light with uncertain gray twilight. She landed heavily the first time she let herself topple, but she made herself draw even breaths and focus on nothing but the movement. Then the smooth unwinding form came back to her easily enough. 

When she had fallen a dozen times, she lay on her back among the leaves and the new shoots of grass, looking up at the sky. The Lady came and stood over her, studying her. Then the Lady let herself drop too, directly on top of Kate. 

"Enough for today," she said. Her hands began roaming, and Kate shivered. A little later, lying with her bared breasts still stinging and the Lady's mouth working between her thighs, Kate felt as if her whole body was molten and would never be stiff again. 

 

The morning was clear and sunny, and Kate woke with energy singing in her veins. The Lady, as usual, had already left the hut, so Kate got to work tending the fire, sweeping with the twig broom they had fashioned, and fetching more water. 

When she reached the bank, she saw the Lady sitting on a rock staring into the stream. Kate thought she might go and sit next to her, until she came close enough to see the Lady's face. It was utterly still, and her features bore the expression of extreme weariness that Kate had seen there once before, on All Hallows' Eve. 

Kate backed away silently and walked upstream far enough that the Lady's stony form was entirely hidden before she approached the bank again.

 

They skipped a few market trips, having bought enough grain to last the next weeks and with nothing new to sell themselves yet. Then, after few days of rain, Kate found a fallen elm log with velvet shank mushrooms growing all over it. The Lady made Kate eat one to prove she was sure of what kind they were. Then she nodded and told Kate to gather the rest to bring in.

It was a pleasant morning, clear and warm, and Kate saw snowdrops and crocuses everywhere beside the track they followed into town. The market square in the village was crowded too. Kate sold everything they had brought before the Lady even returned from making their own purchases. She was quite ready to turn around and leave the noise behind.

They had not gone far into the woods, though, before there was more noise: the pounding of running feet, and then a voice shouting, "Kate! Kate Sutton!"

Kate froze. She had not heard her name spoken in so long—the Lady did not address her by it, and she had not offered it to anyone she bartered with in the marketplace. It was a shock to hear it yelled aloud. And more than that, in the next moment she realized that she knew the voice, too. She turned around as the footsteps neared. The runner rounded the bend in the path, and it was Christopher.

"Kate!" he said again as he came to a halt in front of her. "It _is_ you!"

Kate turned to glance at the Lady, but the Lady's expression, though keenly focused, gave nothing away.

"What brings you to this place?" Kate said to Christopher.

"Oh Kate, your voice," he said. "Come on, it's me—you can talk normally to me. I've been looking for you, of course. I've been looking for you everywhere."

Kate's chest was full of feeling, though she could hardly understand what it was. His own voice was still so familiar to her that it was a gut pleasure just to hear the tones she knew so well. But seeing him here, where she had neither expected nor wanted him to be, threw her into confusion. "Why should you seek me?" she said.

"Why—to bring you back home! Kate, I don't know what hold they have on you, what bargain you thought you had to strike, but you don't have to stay here. You can come home with me where you belong, right now." He held out his hand.

"You have the wrong of it," Kate said, for she was sure of that much. "I am here by my own choice, and I do not belong with you."

"That's their influence talking," Christopher said. "I should have known right away that night that you would never say such outlandish things unless you were under some other kind of control. But I didn't realize whose until Randal came and told us they had actually taken you away."

"If that is what you were told, then you were told false. I chose to leave freely, because I did not wish to stay."

"This is madness! What have you done to her?" Christopher snapped, turning to the Lady. "Have you drugged her?"

The Lady raised one delicate eyebrow, but made no other reply.

"You will gain nothing by continuing these false accusations," Kate told Christopher.

He took a few heaving breaths, lips pressed together tightly. "Kate," he said, more quietly, and clearly aiming for a warm tone. "I missed you so much. Your father and your sister miss you too." Kate felt a pang at that, but he was still speaking. "I couldn't sleep for knowing you'd been stolen from me. I rode as far as I could myself, and we sent messengers all over the county to search for you, seeking out any scrap of news. When we got word that someone answering your description had been seen in this town, we were overjoyed. All the way riding here I have been so happy knowing I was coming to fetch you home. Kate, don't you want to come home?"

"It is no home for me any longer," she said, though it was not until she heard the words out loud that she realized how true they were. She could not imagine returning either to Elvenwood Hall or to London—not with the knowledge she now had of what it felt like to live in the woods and sleep under the sky, to care for a part of the land and to know how to use it properly. A part of her still warmed at the thought of Christopher seeking her, but she also knew that the possessive claim he felt for her was farther than ever from what she wanted, and would never be a match for what she had formerly felt for him.

"What has she done to you?" Christopher said, quite low.

A memory came into Kate's mind of spreading her legs to the Lady's hand, and she felt herself flushing hot, although he could not possibly know about that.

"Nothing to which I did not agree," she said. "These reproaches are of no use, and ill applied. I have made my choice and I will not change it. Go back to your home, and leave us in peace."

"Kate!" Christopher cried.

"Leave us," she repeated, fixing her eyes on him with the stoniest gaze she had learned under the hill. 

He said more things, to which she did not bother listening any longer. She drew herself up straight and waited. Presently he shut his mouth, turned away, and began trudging back toward the town.

When he was nearly back at the bend, Kate pulled in a deep breath and turned to the Lady. She did not know what expression she hoped for most: pride, approval, perhaps a softening of the lines of worry around the Lady's mouth.

But the Lady was not looking at Kate. She was still looking at Christopher's retreating back, and the light in her eyes was that of pure triumph.


End file.
